Social Action & Science

Being With DyingThis Professional Training Program for Clinicians in Compassionate Care of the Seriously Ill and Dying is fostering a revolution in care of the dying and seriously ill. Clinicians learn essential tools for taking care of dying people with skill and compassion.

ChaplaincyA visionary and comprehensive two-year program for a new kind of chaplaincy to serve individuals, communities, the environment, and the world.

THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF WE: Exploring the Neurobiology of Empathy, Compassion, and Relatedness

This exceptional program explores through teaching, interactive sessions, and meditation the neurological basis of social intelligence. Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) is a way of thinking about the experience of being human and how we develop well-being in our lives and the life of the world through the medium of our relationships. It focuses on the importance of relationships in shaping the brain so that the mind develops resilience and wholesome mental qualities. IPNB is a way of knowing that deepens our understanding of the inner, interpersonal, and therapeutic experience, and also offers direct ways to enhance the functioning of organizations.

This training will be led by psychiatrist, educator, and researcher Dr. Daniel Siegel, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine where he is on the faculty of the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development and is Co-Director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center. Dr. Siegel will explore the application of the skills of social intelligence to personal relationships as well as the functioning of organizations and the development of leadership skills. Roshi Joan contributes perspectives from her years of experience with engaged Buddhism, bringing together meditation and service to others. She will be leading the group in various meditation practices that are the ground for the cultivation of attentional and emotional balance and are compassion-based. Renowned writer Natalie Goldberg introduces writing practice in several sessions as a means for discovering through deep observation how we see the connectedness of our world.

This program offers theoretical and experiential learning, insights and tools. It includes interactive seminars, teachings, and meditation practice.

Upaya is now able to offer CEUs to counselors, therapists and social workers for the following 2009 retreats at a cost of $30.00 per retreat plus cost of retreat and lodging where applicable. Please consider paying this at the time of registration. Thank you.

20 CEUs for this program

For those out-of-state (non-New Mexico) counselors, therapists and social workers, please check with your respective State License Board to confirm acceptance of CEUs from the New Mexico Counseling and Therapy Practice Board.

More about the instructors:

Joan Halifax Roshi is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author. She is Founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist monastery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She received her Ph.D in medical anthropology in 1973. She has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions, including Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Medical School, Georgetown Medical School, University of Virginia Medical School, Duke University Medical School, University of Connecticut Medical School, among many others. She received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual Anthropology, and was an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Ethnobotany at Harvard University. From 1972-1975, she worked with psychiatrist Stanislav Grof at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center on pioneering work with dying cancer patients, using LSD as an adjunct to psychotherapy. After the LSD project, she has continued to work with dying people and their families and to teach health care professionals as well as lay individuals on compassionate care of the dying. She is Director of the Project on Being with Dying and Founder and Director of the Upaya Prison Project that develops programs on meditation for prisoners. For the past twenty-five years, she has been active in environmental work. She studied for a decade with Zen Teacher Seung Sahn and was a teacher in the Kwan Um Zen School. She received the Lamp Transmission from Thich Nhat Hanh, and was given Inka by Roshi Bernie Glassman. A Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order, her work and practice for more than three decades has focused on applied Buddhism. Her books include: The Human Encounter with Death (with Stanislav Grof); Shamanic Voices; Shaman: The Wounded Healer; The Fruitful Darkness; Simplicity in the Complex: A Buddhist Life in America; Being with Dying; and Wisdom Beyond Wisdom (with Kazuaki Tanashashi).

Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., received his medical degree from Harvard University and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA with training in pediatrics and child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. He served as a National Institute of Mental Health research fellow at UCLA, studying family interactions with an emphasis on how attachment experiences influence emotions, behavior, autobiographical memory and narrative. An award-winning educator, he formerly directed the Training Program in Child Psychiatry and the infant and preschool service at UCLA. He is the recipient of the psychiatry department’s teaching award and several honorary fellowships.

Siegel is currently an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine where he is on the faculty of the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development. He is also the director of the Center for Human Development, an educational organization that focuses on how the development of individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes.

Dr. Dan Siegel is the co-editor of a handbook of psychiatry and the author of numerous articles, chapters, and the internationally acclaimed text, The Developing Mind: Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience (1999). This book introduces the idea of interpersonal neurobiology and has been of interest to and utilized by a number of organizations, including the U.S. Department of Justice, the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for The Family, The Council on Technology and the Individual, early intervention programs and a range of clinical and research departments worldwide.

Dr. Siegel serves as the founding editor-in-chief for the Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology. His book with Mary Hartzell, M.Ed., Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive (2003) explores the application of this newly emerging view of the mind, the brain, and human relationships. Dan Siegel’s integrated and accessible developmental approach has led him to be invited to local, national and international organizations to address groups of educators, parents, public administrators, healthcare providers, policy-makers, clergy, and neuroscientists. The overall goal of these educational efforts is to provide a scientifically grounded view of human experience to a wide audience that can help facilitate the development of psychological well-being and emotional resilience across the lifespan.

Natalie Goldberg is the author of fourteen books, including Writing Down the Bones, which has sold over one million copies and has been translated into fourteen languages. She has also written the beloved Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America, a memoir about her Zen teacher. For the last forty years she has practiced Zen and taught seminars in writing as a spiritual practice. She lives in northern New Mexico. For more information about Natalie and her programs and writings, click here.